The long-awaited “Wonder Woman” has generated more buzz than any movie this year, and rightly so. She’s the most beloved and iconic female superhero ever, yet it’s taken decades — the film’s been in development since 1996 — for a Wonder Woman movie. It’s the first to pair a female director with a big-budget, comic-book film meant to be a franchise. In Gal Gadot, it has a star who served in the Israeli army and brings authority to her fight scenes.

“She is the ultimate symbol of strength,” Gadot said in 2015. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d grow up to be in a movie playing someone who influenced as many women as she has.”

What’s curious about this version, coddled and crafted over decades, is the near-total absence of America. Wonder Woman was born during World War II, created by American psychologist William Moulton Marston, and her debut on the cover of DC’s Sensation Comics in 1942 depicted her in red, white and blue, storming into battle. She’d left her home, Paradise Island, to fight the Nazis in “America, the last citadel of democracy and of equal rights for women!”

This new Wonder Woman, however, has almost nothing to do with America. The film is set during World War I, in London. Steve Trevor, the pilot Wonder Woman rescues and falls for, is American in name only — here, he’s working for British intelligence.

Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman from the 1970s series.Everett Collection

Most tellingly, Wonder Woman’s iconic costume has been leached of all color. The bald eagle on her chest, the white stars on her blue bottom, the red-and-white striped boots — all have disappeared. She’s no longer vibrant and strong; she’s sad, a pacifist whose armor resembles mourning attire.

Wonder Woman’s global box-office appeal, it seems, depends on no longer being American. According to a piece in the L.A. Times last year, 70 percent of box office revenue is generated overseas, and those markets now take precedence, no matter how closely your superhero is identified with the United States. In 2010, director Joe Johnson said that his Captain America “would not be a flag waver . . . just a good person.”

Among the most important markets is Germany, which is responsible for nearly 30 percent of foreign revenue. Still sensitive about World War II and its Nazi past, German audiences brook little discomfort, and this new “Wonder Woman” is hardly the first to concede.

“The Imitation Game,” the Oscar-winning 2014 biopic of Alan Turing, the British genius who cracked Nazi codes, was swiftly rebranded. “We toned down the hero aspect and sold it as an emotional drama,” the head of marketing said. As for the film’s raison d’etre, “We toned down the whole World War II backdrop.”

Same with “Lone Survivor,” the 2013 film based on a real-life Navy SEAL’s escape from Taliban forces. “In Europe we toned down the patriotism and made it into a thinking man’s film,” said the head of Germany’s SquareOne Entertainment, which specializes in such re-branding. “It was more nuanced than the US campaign.”

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In his recent GQ cover story, Brad Pitt implied that his WWII drama “Allied” underwent similar repositioning last year, and the larger implications concerned him. “The European posters had the American flag in the background and it came back from the marketing department: ‘Remove the flag. It’s not a good sell here.’ I was like, Man, that’s America. That’s what we’ve done to our brand.”

Until now, the most iconic Wonder Woman has been the 1970s version played by Lynda Carter, her stars-and-stripes costume the truest representation. Since 1941 there have been few variations, and those never lasted long. When DC Comics put Wonder Woman in leggings in 2010, ardent fan Gloria Steinem criticized the move, saying it compromised her feminine strength. “Jeans give us the idea that only pants can be powerful,” she said. “Tell that to Greek warriors and sumo wrestlers.”

By 2011, Wonder Woman was back to her usual look.

Defenders of this latest cinematic costume may well point to the DC Comics films’ overall palette, the dark and despairing world of go-to director Zack Snyder. But to see Wonder Woman so remade, her look such a deliberate attempt to erase the country she’s long fought for, is to undercut what could have been the movie’s most substantial contribution: Why can’t Wonder Woman make America great again?